Cosmic Queries: Jiggle Wiggle Waggle Walk with Charles Liu

Do swimmers need less oxygen? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice answer patron questions about athletics and science with Geek-in-Chief astrophysicist Charles Liu. Could Chuck be a gymnast?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Sports Edition. And this is gonna be a Cosmic Queries Grab Bag. I love those, cuz they go everywhere. And we're responding to your depths of curiosity out there. We're gonna do three segments. In the first segment, we're gonna do Cosmic Queries. In the second segment, more Cosmic Queries. And in the third segment, even more. And I got with me my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck.

• 0:40Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil.

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good to have you there. All right. Professional comedian. And I got a former professional soccer player in the guise of Gary O'Reilly. Gary, I feel privileged to have you, have access to you. I feel reciprocal feelings. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. And we said in previous episodes, you, there's a Wiki page where your legs are on full display. Oh, my God. And Chuck couldn't stop talking about it. Fill up Betty Grable. Let me tell you. For our listeners, Google that, cuz it's gonna go probably way over your head. But there you go. And, you know, I, I think I'm pretty good with Grab Bag Cosmic Queries, but I know someone out there who's better. We all do.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's beloved, a friend of StarTalk, my friend, my colleague, Charles Liu. Charles.

• 1:28Charles Liu?

  Hello Neil. It's a pleasure. And Chuck and Gary, great to see you guys again. Thank you so much.

• 1:34Chuck Nice?

  The champion returns!

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because whatever I know, you know more of it. That's what, that's why.

• 1:41Charles Liu?

  Not at all.

• 1:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is evidence that the, that the geek spectrum goes infinite in each direction. Okay? Wherever you are in it, there's someone geekier than you, and arms reach away. And that's what we've got right here.

• 1:55Charles Liu?

  I would just like to think that we complete each other.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's, that's.

• 1:59Charles Liu?

  I don't know. I can supplement and vice versa.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's.

• 2:03Charles Liu?

  We're a team, dude.

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we're recording this right in the middle of the Olympics, and finally, finally, track and field kicked in. So, um, Chuck, are you on top of that?

• 2:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes, absolutely. The, uh, the Olympics, I'm, uh, I'm watching none of it.

• 2:19Charles Liu?

  Oh, is that possible? How can you avoid?

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Charles. Okay, I asked the wrong person. Charles.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna be very honest. I tried. I can't find it. I can't find it anywhere. I'm serious.

• 2:29Charles Liu?

  Really?

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do over. Charles, how have you been doing with the Olympics?

• 2:34Charles Liu?

  Oh, I have been following it. I've been watching some stuff and I confess that I was staying up till all hours once or twice this past week, just checking things out live because somehow there is a difference between watching something happen in real time compared with watching it packaged in prime time.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so Gary, Chuck, you got the, you got the questions out there. So let's see what we've got. And are all these from Patreon?

• 2:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, they are. Um, I'll start off Chuck and follow up with the next one. Jay Maggi, here we go. Is oxygen deprivation a major case with swimmers who train and compete for Olympic gold? What kind of transformation do their bodies go through in being able to push their bodies while getting less oxygen? Okay, Charles, over to you.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Charles, let me tighten that question a little bit and ask you.

• 3:24Charles Liu?

  Sure.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If, are the better athletes better because they do well with less oxygen? Or because they've done something with their physical fitness so that they always have more oxygen available?

• 3:40Charles Liu?

  Uh, both are kind of.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I presume it doesn't, it doesn't focus just on swimmers, just anybody with, with this major muscle performance.

• 3:47Charles Liu?

  And, and in fact, there is a method of blood doping where you add oxygen, uh, hemoglobin rich stuff into your body. So there's a way to cheat on that too. But oxygenation is a very good question.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And. Wait, wait, wait. If you add, if you add oxygen rich hemoglobin, that's not a separate chemical different from the rest of what's in your body.

• 4:05Charles Liu?

  But if you have a higher percentage of hemoglobin in your blood, then you can process oxygen a little bit better.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then you won't get caught.

• 4:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:11Charles Liu?

  Yes. Uh, or supposedly.

• 4:13Chuck Nice?

  I, I believe they call that the Keith Richards.

• 4:17Gary O'Reilly?

  You train at altitude, Charles. You harvest blood that's hot, that obviously is able to take in more oxygen. You keep it, knowing that you're performing at sea level. And then you dope with, with your own blood.

• 4:31Chuck Nice?

  With your own blood.

• 4:33Charles Liu?

  Tour de France cyclists are in fact infamous for doing this kind of work.

• 4:37Chuck Nice?

  And, and no disrespect to people who don't like this guy. One of the reasons why.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That might seem about to disrespect him.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay. Yeah, well, no, no, no. No, I'm saying, I understand why you may not like him, but one of the greatest cyclists of all time, because of his, the way his, he metabolized, he was able to retain oxygen in his blood, is Lance Armstrong.

• 5:02Charles Liu?

  Well, his doping is now well recorded and legendary. And if he were not doing that, maybe he would not be one of the greatest cyclists of all time. But that's another conversation for another time. To answer specifically the oxygenation question.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  I know, man.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just politely.

• 5:19Charles Liu?

  Well, sorry.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, Charles was polite.

• 5:21Chuck Nice?

  That's what I was saying. I said, if you don't like him, I understand.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles was polite, okay.

• 5:26Charles Liu?

  No, no, no.

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It had nothing to do with like, it was just the facts of the circumstances. But, okay, go on, go on, Charles.

• 5:30Charles Liu?

  Yeah. With oxygenation is very interesting for swimmers, for example, very asthmatics, people who have a hard time taking in air sometimes are told to swim to help them deal with that better. Some of the world's greatest swimmers of all time actually have asthma. For example, Amy Van Dijken, who won many gold medals in swimming, was asthmatic. And as a result, for example, the way that she swam, she was able to use her muscles and work her, her body, despite the fact there was a difficulty in her being able to take in air.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's because you force your body and train it to breathe at these regular intervals? So it's, it's really a breathing exercise at that level?

• 6:14Charles Liu?

  Not only breathing, yes, but also the ability to do something very effectively, even though you're not in taking more oxygen.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:22Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what about the sprints, like the 50 meter sprint? They don't even come up for air, so.

• 6:28Charles Liu?

  No, they don't, that's right.

• 6:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. Usain, Usain Bolt is so good, he actually held his breath the entire time he was running, just to try and make it fair.

• 6:38Chuck Nice?

  Just to make it fair.

• 6:39Charles Liu?

  Can't tell, can't tell if you're joking or serious.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was still, he was still tying his shoes when everyone else began.

• 6:46Charles Liu?

  But yeah, it's true. The people who are doing the 50 meter sprint swims over the 20-ish seconds where they're working like crazy, they might come up for one breath. That's it.

• 6:57Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Keep it going. What else we have?

• 7:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah. Wow. Look at that. Well, we're not gonna make you hold your breath for the next question.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta add something astrophysical here. So Earth's atmosphere didn't always have oxygen. It was likely carbon dioxide in its very earliest stages, and the whole echosphere at the time fed on carbon dioxide and, and, and released oxygen as a byproduct. And so we can argue here, I think, Charles, but I think we'd agree, the biggest climatic change ever was, was the conversion of our atmosphere from CO2 based to oxygen to have significant oxygen.

• 7:38Charles Liu?

  Correct. The great, the great oxygenation took hundreds of millions of years, and it was the most significant extinction event in the history of life on Earth.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. So it, it was like for us, what global warming would be. Cool, cool.

• 7:53Charles Liu?

  Very possible.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 7:54Charles Liu?

  Except global warming is happening on this time scale of human lifetimes, whereas that's happening to take care of hundreds of millions of years.

• 8:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So oxygen then enabled a whole other level and classification of metabolism to take place. It's like rocket fuel for, for, for macroscopic animals.

• 8:12Charles Liu?

  Yeah. But that took, it took forever to evolve that, and everything that didn't evolve that.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Died. There it is. Okay. Give me another question. Give me another one.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  All right. Here we go. This is Michael De Cola, and he says, hey, guys, which sport of all sports, in your scientific opinions, requires the highest level of eye-hand coordination? And why? Baseball, hockey, tennis, badminton, ping pong?

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I love it. Let's get to that. We gotta take a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna fight over who thinks, well, clearly in soccer, there's no hand-eye coordination because they don't use their hands. So, so you're out of, you're not in this, you're not in this conversation.

• 8:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Keepers. Oh, I'm, I'm in this conversation, but it doesn't have to be about soccer or football.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, when we come back, more StarTalk Sports Edition Cosmic Queries with my friend and colleague, Charles Lu.

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Cosmic Queries, grab bag, all Cosmic Queries, all the time. On this, in this episode, I got Charles Lu with me, he's an astrophysicist with the City University of New York, and I've known this guy for twenty something years, and

• 9:54Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  wherever I am on the geek spectrum, he's beyond it. He's multiple steps beyond, so that's why we have him here.

• 10:03Charles Liu?

  There's a synergistic relationship.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 10:05Charles Liu?

  We, we work, we work with one another, thank you.

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as you said in the first segment, we complete one another, maybe that's what it is, and Chuck, Chuck Nice and Gary O'Reilly, let's do this. Okay, so what was that next question?

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  Uh, when we last, uh, when, before we left, Michael DeCola wanted to know which sport of all sports, in your scientific opinions, requires the highest level of hand-eye coordination, and why?

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna vote real quick, and I would, I would not have had this answer, except for the Olympics I saw two days ago, and I have to say table tennis, because, oh my gosh, what the hell are they doing? How are they, how it is happening? And I can't even follow it. I'm dizzy just looking at them, and they're actually playing the game. So I vote for table tennis, hand-eye coordination.

• 10:49Charles Liu?

  I agree that that is very impressive, but my watching has led me to believe the thing that's even more crazy and even harder is fencing.

• 11:00Charles Liu?

  I cannot tell when people score. I just can't see the blades.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is funny where they just sort of remove their mask and cheer and say, what the hell just happened?

• 11:10Charles Liu?

  They move so fast. And we should also qualify, right, Neil and Gary? I know you're about to say something about this too. There are many different versions of hand-eye coordination. There's the whole hand by fencing. There's individual finger craft, right? There's the ability to move the arm in general. It's a very complex system. So the term hand-eye coordination is very complicated and there could be many correct answers to this.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for me, I kind of like the triple play in baseball that requires very high hand-eye speed, coordination and accuracy. But still, the ping pong, my head is still bouncing back and forth from three days ago matches that I saw. So who else? So Gary?

• 11:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so it's a non-Olympic.

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't get a vote here because soccer.

• 11:57Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I have a non-scientific opinion, so I'm kind of just, I'm running for fun, as it were. So it's a non-Olympic sport, but I have to push forward Formula One racing. To be able to travel at 200 miles an hour, coordinate everything in your ears that's coming from your team, to assess intuitively the situation of your car on the road at those speeds whilst driving. I would push that forward, but there's an argument for and against, I'm sure.

• 12:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My argument against that is everybody's going 200 miles an hour.

• 12:28Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 12:29Charles Liu?

  And the car is helping a little bit.

• 12:31Gary O'Reilly?

  It's not going in a straight line. That's the thing with Formula One. It doesn't go in a straight line. You've got a very, very different track.

• 12:36Charles Liu?

  That's true, you do have to steer.

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, how about you?

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  Well, I tell you, man, I'm confused now because ping pong is a blurringly fast sport where you can't even follow the ball and they're like the way they're and I don't know how they create that much force to slam that little teeny ball that doesn't even, I can't even throw it. And they're smashing it so that it travels through. But then fencing is so incredible, the way they're moving these foils in such a way that they're blocking each other and you can't even see it. And they're saying things like, hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You're my father. Prepare to die.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think they should replace fencing with lightsabers.

• 13:25Chuck Nice?

  Alright, there it is. Now I'm watching all the time. Olympics or not?

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be the future of fencing.

• 13:32Charles Liu?

  Lightsaber fighting in Star Wars is much more like the style of playing kendo, which is a sword fighting technique.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yes, I like kendo. Yes, I know kendo.

• 13:41Charles Liu?

  Kendo may well be-

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Use a cane. Use like-

• 13:46Charles Liu?

  Yeah, sticks.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sticks, basically.

• 13:48Charles Liu?

  That represent swords. Yeah, so instead of like cutting you in half with them, you just-

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you just end up with a knot on your head like this.

• 13:55Charles Liu?

  Well, they're heavily armored, yeah. But I don't know when Formula One's gonna become an Olympic sport.

• 14:00Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so what do you guys think about baseball? Baseball-

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Baseball triple play is-

• 14:05Charles Liu?

  Tremendously difficult. Very hard. The hand-eye coordination of pitchers gotta throw the ball at 100 miles an hour.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And land it in a box, right.

• 14:12Charles Liu?

  Yeah, in a little tiny box. And then the batter's gotta, you know, make sure that you're taking a little stick and hitting this ball that's coming towards you at 100 miles an hour. Very complicated. So, really, every sport has a case to make for what is the most difficult hand-eye coordination. I don't think we can arrive today on a truly-

• 14:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just not soccer because they don't use their hands. That's all I'm saying.

• 14:34Gary O'Reilly?

  What is it with soccer and you? What's your problem?

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love you, but in this case-

• 14:39Gary O'Reilly?

  I love you, but not that much.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got nothing for you. Next question. What do you got?

• 14:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, here we go. Next question's up, and it's V O L E T A, and it's broke down frenetically for us, and my mom Izzy. They're back.

• 14:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know V O L E T A.

• 14:56Gary O'Reilly?

  So now-

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is she still 11?

• 14:59Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no. Here we go. Breaking news. I am finally 13 years of age.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's a teenager!

• 15:05Gary O'Reilly?

  And I am writing to you from DC. And here we go.

• 15:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah!

• 15:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Write down our lane. What are the weirdest sports to ever officially be part of the Olympic Games, past or present? And why though? So, has anyone got?

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta vote, I gotta vote here.

• 15:22Gary O'Reilly?

  You go first.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta, I gotta vote here. So, it has to be the tug of war, which was in the first few Olympics. And they said, no, this is, we're not doing this anymore. So, that was just kinda weird, right? The tug of war. So, the rule was, as I understand it, everybody in the tug of war had to have a common,

• 15:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  a profession. And they have to dress in whatever it is that that profession required of them. So, there was a unit. It wasn't just random people from your country. So, it would be like all police officers or fire people or whatever. And so, so it turned out, the Brits kept winning it because they put their bobbies in it. You know, the police. And they have these long boots with steel shanks in the, at the heel. And so, once they dug in their heels, you can't unpull that. And so, they were winning every time and they just, they just gave up in the tug of war.

• 16:14Gary O'Reilly?

  So, we broke, we broke the sport of tug of war? Is that what you're saying?

• 16:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so tug of war. That was kinda weird.

• 16:20Charles Liu?

  Well, that's an equipment technology issue.

• 16:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. They made, they probably could have gotten around that. But that was kinda weird. And I would say the, one of the weirdest sports we still have, not including all the really weird ones, just traditionally weird. The triple jump, I, I can't get around that one. I'm sorry.

• 16:37Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. That's got, that's got so much physics in it. I mean, for me.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's, let's not just jump once. Let's jump three times.

• 16:44Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, wait. First hop first. And then, it's like, with who?

• 16:47Charles Liu?

  And then skip.

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then skip.

• 16:49Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a happy, it's a happy event. You get to skip, you get to skip in the middle. All right, so my.

• 16:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's my vote.

• 16:56Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. My, my, obviously, as I've said already, non-scientific, is speed walking.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 17:02Gary O'Reilly?

  That, I, I, you know, I get walking around, but walking like that, um, you know, to all the athletes.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's like, go as fast as you can, just don't run.

• 17:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Just go as fast as you can and look almost as ridiculous as you can doing it. So, with respect to every speed walker.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nobody looks good speed walking.

• 17:20Gary O'Reilly?

  But, I don't get it.

• 17:21Charles Liu?

  But, but walking is cool because the rule that you have to have one foot on the ground at all times is a fascinating physical requirement.

• 17:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's not why they look weird.

• 17:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They look weird because the. Nope, that's no, no, no. They look weird because the leg that's coming under your body has to have a locked knee.

• 17:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you so yes, yes. So as the you put you put down your foot in front of you as your body passes over that foot, your leg has to be straight. And so otherwise, you ever see the posters keep on trucking? You could you could you could truck faster than you can speed walk if because you're not limited by the leg going straight under your body. And so it's the straightening of the leg that shifts the hips up and down and gives you that jiggle wiggle waggle walk that that they've got. It just looks painful. So Chuck, how about you? What sport is the weirdest?

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  Very quickly, ribbon dancing. What the hell?

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we still have that.

• 18:20Charles Liu?

  Rhythmic gymnastics? Rhythmic gymnastics?

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  Not with the ribbon?

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, same thing.

• 18:25Charles Liu?

  The ribbon was only one event. There's also the little ball that you could dance with.

• 18:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that too. That goes in with the ribbon dancing for me. It's ridiculous.

• 18:32Charles Liu?

  Rhythmic gymnastics.

• 18:32Chuck Nice?

  Stop it, is what I'm saying.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just stop.

• 18:36Charles Liu?

  I think it's cool.

• 18:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, just stop it with your stupid ball and your dumb ribbon.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like where you said that. Just stop.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop it.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  Stop.

• 18:46Charles Liu?

  No, I love the ribbon.

• 18:47Chuck Nice?

  Take your ribbon and wrap a gift and take your ball and go to the beach.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And leave it out of the damn Olympics.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  And leave it out of the Olympics.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no love for the no love for the rhythmic gymnastics, Charles.

• 19:00Charles Liu?

  I love rhythmic gymnastics.

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got one I got one more one more thing. It's not weird, but I have to confess my urban ignorance. So I think I was maybe 20, like embarrassingly, probably a little younger, but still embarrassingly old, the day I learned that the in water polo, you're never touching the ground.

• 19:23Charles Liu?

  Never touch the bottom of the pool.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because it's like seven, eight, nine feet down. And I said, what? And so I saw I don't know that I don't know that counts as a sport that is weird, but I thought it was weird that they had to swim the entire time. I said, who would do that? That makes it harder.

• 19:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're just trying to throw the ball.

• 19:43Charles Liu?

  Physical fitness of, yeah.

• 19:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that's.

• 19:45Charles Liu?

  Physical fitness of water polo athletes just.

• 19:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Pretty amazing.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think, I think it's an uncelebrated fact about what they do and how and why they do it. Yeah, yeah. All right, all right, let's get one more.

• 19:57Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before we take our next break.

• 19:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go ahead.

• 19:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Kaylee, Kaylee Sell. Um, hi Chuck, hi everybody. Are there very many participants in the sports world working directly with scientists in the pursuit to figure out? It's a long question, by the way. Um, pull up a chair. Out of just how durable the human body can be and what these athletes can accomplish. I've heard people saying we should have at least one perfectly average person competing against the world's best in the Olympics. So can we have some frame of reference and a laugh? So basically Chuck, so basically Chuck, this is what Kaylee Sell is saying. How much would they need to pay you Chuck? Right? To do gymnastics next to Simone Biles? And what is the statistical likelihood you would survive to do another StarTalk episode?

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's the rewording of the question.

• 20:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We will find out when we come back whether Chuck should be in the Olympics. So we can all laugh at him relative to everybody else on StarTalk.

• 21:11Chuck Nice?

  Big thank yous and a Patreon shout out. Go to Courtney Miller, Victor Beaton, Charles Anglisi and Rudy Amaya. Hey guys, without you, we could not make this show. So thank you for your support and anyone else who would like their very own Patreon shout out. Please go to patreon.com slash StarTalk Radio and support us.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back for our third and final segment of Snark Talk. Sports edition, Cosmic Queries, Grab Bag Edition. I got Charles Liu. Charles, how do we find you on the internet?

• 21:57Charles Liu?

  Uh, I tweet at Chuck Liu, C-H-U-C-K-L-I-U.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 22:03Charles Liu?

  And generally just find me around.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, fine. Just open some doors, there he is.

• 22:09Chuck Nice?

  Just turn on the internet and you'll find Chuck Liu.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we left off, I forgot, was this question directed to Charles Liu or Chuck Nice?

• 22:18Gary O'Reilly?

  This is a Chuck Nice question.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About the average person we want to see perform.

• 22:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, so they want to see just how good the best in the world actually are by putting what they are cont- This is Kaylee Sell, by the way. She is saying, right, how much do we need to pay Chuck to do gymnastics next to Simone Biles? And what is the statistical likelihood you would survive to do-

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That Chuck will break.

• 22:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that we would just completely trash Chuck Nice.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like the idea that we get a reminder of what is average.

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the base level.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a facet. So, instead of the world record line on the pool, there should be the Chuck Nice line, you know, moving as Chuck Nice would be.

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, which by the way would be a kiddie pool.

• 22:56Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, but what it does, I mean, spinning that 180, what it does is make you realize just how good these athletes are. And when you say elite, I think in some instances it doesn't do them justice.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, if I ever swam against an Olympic, uh, in an Olympic meet, uh, the other swimmers would also have to wear swimmies to make it even for me. Cause I bet you that that would like ruin them, like actually swimming with swimmies.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will help you out. A swimmy's those little inflatable things that are on your arms?

• 23:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes, they go on your arms.

• 23:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright, that's what I was wondering. So here's the difference. There are events where you would break if you attempted them, but we all can walk and we know how to run and most of us know how to swim. So, I think those are more typical of where you can put an average person in and see where they would land. I think that would be an interesting, um, uh, exercise.

• 23:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Making Chuck do the, the balance beam or floor exercises with Simone Biles.

• 23:55Chuck Nice?

  Let me just tell you, you could not pay me to do the balance beam for two reasons.

• 24:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I know what they are.

• 24:03Chuck Nice?

  I actually, and there's two reasons.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  And I like them both.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright, fine. That's the end of that joke right there.

• 24:12Chuck Nice?

  That's the end of that joke, okay? So that's...

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 24:15Chuck Nice?

  And the second thing is that I have a permanent case of the twisties. So, you know.

• 24:21Charles Liu?

  Look, all you have to do is a double pike dismount, and you don't have to twist.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true. Okay, so here it is, Chuck, I'm gonna quote one of your brethren, Stephen Wright. He says, "I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of widths."

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  You gotta love that.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good, that was good.

• 24:44Charles Liu?

  It's not the fall, it's the landing, right?

• 24:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right, right. Alright, let's get another one going here, in our third and final segment. So what else you got? You guys going back and forth?

• 24:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, this is Michael Mean. Michael Mean says, "Hey Neil and Charles, Lucas, my 10-year-old science enthusiast wishes to know, how many gymnasts jump so high during their floor routines?"

• 25:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not how many, but how...

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  How do? He forgot the "do." How do gymnasts, uh, jump so high during their floor routines?

• 25:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He didn't forget the "do," you added a word that wasn't there. Okay, which no, "how gymnasts jump so high," that's all. Don't be blaming it on the, on Michael.

• 25:25Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, Michael didn't write this question the way I told him to.

• 25:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, he should let his 10-year-old ask the question, not himself. So we're answering Lucas here, not Michael.

• 25:38Charles Liu?

  Yes, Lucas, an excellent question, and Michael, thank you for phrasing the question for Lucas on Lucas's behalf. The answer is twofold. One is gymnasts have so much muscle power per cubic inch of their body that they're able to launch themselves in very, very effective ways. Kind of like a way a basketball player can elevate above the rim. But in this instance, it's elevating their whole bodies in unusual...

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could it be that they're smaller? They're smaller.

• 26:09Charles Liu?

  Being smaller helps.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got to because a flea can jump many times its height. But a hippopotamus can't.

• 26:16Charles Liu?

  That's right. So that's, that's part of it, right.

• 26:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Imagine a jumping hippopotamus. That would be amazing.

• 26:20Charles Liu?

  Oh, I would love to see that. But the second point, which sometimes people don't know as much.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, have you seen baby hippos? They're the cutest thing. They do jump with all four feet. Okay, go on.

• 26:30Charles Liu?

  Yeah, and they can cut you in half with their mouth.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Charles Liu?

  They are, they are powerful, powerful animals.

• 26:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they're all jaw. Yeah, okay. So go on, go on.

• 26:38Charles Liu?

  The, the other part is that a lot of people don't realize that in the floor exercises, there are springs under the floor. Is a very small amount to give an elasticity on the floor just, uh, in order to allow the athletes to have that extra push and see all the cool things that we get to see when they are performing their acts.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that means the energy that they give themselves by jumping high, when they hit the, the, the pad again, that energy goes into the spring and goes back to them and it's not absorbed by anything. So that, so there's no dissipation of the jumping energy. Inelastic, you end up, you're burning up the energy, uh, losing the energy to some friction, I guess, or, or.

• 27:23Charles Liu?

  Correct.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or heat. Now, apparently, somebody wasn't content with the floor exercises and they introduced the trampoline to the Olympics.

• 27:29Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. We need more springs.

• 27:32Charles Liu?

  That is an amazing, amazing sport.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not jumping high enough. Right, right.

• 27:36Charles Liu?

  This guy's going 30 feet in the air. Uh, uh, beautiful. Fascinating.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, keep it, keep it coming. Give me some more.

• 27:43Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, we, um.

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, Lucas, 10-year-old Lucas.

• 27:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, uh, we're gonna fill one in, which kind of seems off-topic, but I think we'll find a way to make this work. Josh has asked, what fields, because a physics graduate work in minus teaching? I wish to switch my degree to physics, but I am worried about the lack of job prospects. Well, we are a science sports show. So Charles, do we have the answer here?

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, he's asking, if he's majors in physics, is there a job? You know, so the thing is, so he's looking in the want ads, or whatever they are today, and say, "Physicists needed. That's not how this works. Oh, no." Yeah, Charles, take this from me. Go.

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and by the way, we're not Indeed.com.

• 28:27Charles Liu?

  Regrettably, we may not have the job to offer. But let me provide encouragement. As Neil was alluding to, physics is essentially the understanding of how the world and the universe work.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My undergraduate degree is in physics.

• 28:42Charles Liu?

  Yeah, I have one undergraduate degree in physics as well, in addition to astronomy and astrophysics. The point is that most people would love to hire a physicist for doing something other than teaching. For example, helping athletes be more effective in their athletic behavior because they know the physics of the human body, the physics of the equipment, the physics of the venue. What you need to do in order to take advantage of those opportunities in the world after you've attained a physics degree is to love what you do. Loving the physics and understanding what's happening allows you to extend yourself into different areas of the world, which you might not have thought of as physics,

• 29:27Charles Liu?

  and in the process, literally change how those fields work.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I may add, because Charles and I complement each other. No, no, because Charles and I complete each other. Let me add that physics is not so much a body of knowledge as it is insight into the operations of nature. So employers who know that do very well. And who are among them, Google has hired physicists. My wife has a PhD in mathematical physics and was hired by Michael Bloomberg when he began his entire financial empire. When she was hired in, he had only less than 100 employees. And he himself has degrees in math and physics.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when he became the youngest partner ever at Solomon Brothers, his mother said, "But you're not using your physics degree." And then when he left with $30 million and founded a company, a tech, info tech company, "But you're not using your physics degree." Then he becomes a multi-billionaire, then he runs a, "You're not using your physics degree." The fact is, he was using his physics degree every step of the way.

• 30:34Chuck Nice?

  That's right. So shut up, mom.

• 30:37Charles Liu?

  No, no, never tell mom to shut up.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck can say it because he's a comedian, he's allowed to say it.

• 30:44Charles Liu?

  Okay, but, but the realization, yes, if you want to switch to physics because you really love it and you want to study the way the universe works, do it and you will find the employment opportunities there opening up for you.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, and if you're really just into just the physics for the physics sake, then you, then you can be a physicist and be a research professor somewhere. But if you don't want to teach and you don't want to do that, 99 other places will do, will, will take you because you will see the world the way others do not, as a juxtaposition of matter, motion and energy. In fact, Charles and I are co-authors on a book published in the year 2000, which is basically about astronomy and the universe.

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  However, the content was organized by the physics principles of matter, motion and energy. And that was sort of an innovative way to think about information and knowledge and how it works to bring us the world that we know and understand and love.

• 31:42Charles Liu?

  One universe at home in the cosmos, yeah.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hi folks, like one more question, we got more, another question there?

• 31:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Peter Jacobs.

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, can we do the Javelin, do the Javelin, that's a fast, easy one?

• 31:50Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, uh, let's see, let's see, let's see. Ah, this is from Roman Prekop. Is there any technology which could make, i.e. Javelins, fly further? I think, Charles, you've got this, we may have touched on this before.

• 32:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I got this, I got this, rockets.

• 32:07Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put a rocket on it.

• 32:09Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. Low hanging fruit has been picked.

• 32:12Charles Liu?

  What, what is it but a, what is a rocket but a Javelin with a rocket on it?

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that's right.

• 32:18Gary O'Reilly?

  So, Charles, didn't they already do this? Because the Javelin-

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They did the opposite of this.

• 32:22Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What did they do?

• 32:23Gary O'Reilly?

  They moved the center of gravity by, there's a weight, so they moved it further back. And so that actually made the javelin throw go less distance, but there was some

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that because because the space in the stadium, they couldn't contain the thrown javelin in the stadium without risking killing someone on the facing stand?

• 32:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Can you imagine someone in a 5,000?

• 32:45Chuck Nice?

  We only lost, we only lost four fans.

• 32:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, and, and an athlete in the 5,000 meters that was taking the bend.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that happened to be running.

• 32:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, imagine how that would explain that one.

• 32:56Gary O'Reilly?

  There was also, Charles, wasn't there some sort of feathering on the tail of the javelin as well that they were using to make it fly? So can we explain that as well?

• 33:04Charles Liu?

  That's right. Well, aerodynamically speaking, when you have something in the tail of an object moving, it helps stabilize the motion and create a better trajectory. And what we always want to do when we're trying to throw things that are not round, or even round to some extent, is to try to make sure it doesn't wobble or make too many changes in its profile to the air as it moves through the air.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that'll bring up more air resistance.

• 33:29Charles Liu?

  Aerodynamic and effective.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would create more air resistance, I see.

• 33:32Charles Liu?

  The, the fletching creates, yeah, a, a little bit of air resistance by existing, but what it does is, is it makes the net air resistance of the entire system much smaller.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. So, so this is why, to just go off sport here, uh, this is why you can throw a spiral, uh, football farther than throwing it in any other sort of, uh, kind of trajectory, right? A spiral goes farther because it maintains the same, what, how did you call it, profile to the air as it moves, as it moves through.

• 34:02Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, very cool. So, but, so we don't want them to fly farther, that's the point, because we want to contain it within the stadium.

• 34:08Gary O'Reilly?

  We can build bigger stadiums, but that's not cost effective.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. All right, all right. Uh, I, I, let's do one more. Was there one on, on the Paralympics there?

• 34:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, there was. Uh, this is a question from Peter Jacobs from Queensland, Australia. Shouldn't we allow Paralympic swimmers to wear prosthesis? Prosthesis?

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 34:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Prosthesis, yeah.

• 34:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Prosthesis, thank you, Neil.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting, interesting.

• 34:36Charles Liu?

  Well, um, in my opinion, it would be fine if everyone wore the same kind of prosthetic that would allow them to be performing on a fair level playing field. That's kind of hard to know, right? Paralympic athletes all need different kinds of prosthetics. And so if you

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's part of the interesting challenge of designing the sports and how they would be contested.

• 35:04Charles Liu?

  Then you wind up with, yeah, a circumstance. And, and really, um, this is philosophical as opposed to physical, but in my opinion, when a paralympic athlete is performing, that person is whole. That person is not incomplete and needs a prosthetic to complete them. They are who they are. And so competing with that in mind, in that attitude, is in my opinion, probably much more meaningful than athletic competition than prostheticizing everyone to be sort of a uniform in that way.

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn.

• 35:42Charles Liu?

  Otherwise you'd be like, well, might

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep and philosophical and moral. And moral.

• 35:47Charles Liu?

  Well, think about it.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look. No, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, nothing you said has any rebuttal at all.

• 35:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, which is why I can't stand it because you couldn't, I can't make a joke.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't even make a joke about it.

• 35:59Chuck Nice?

  What am I going to do with that?

• 36:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you're saying is to say, let's put on a prosthetic means we have to turn you into us in order to watch you compete. And that's just wrong.

• 36:09Charles Liu?

  Absolutely.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:11Charles Liu?

  It's not necessary.

• 36:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, Charles. What an answer. Charles, what an answer. Damn.

• 36:16Chuck Nice?

  That is really good.

• 36:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn. And of course, if you want to cross over to one of our other postings, we interviewed the archer for the Paralympics who does not have hands. And we

• 36:27Charles Liu?

  The armless archer is Matt Studsmann, Neil.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we had, we had him on StarTalk and, and that was quite a show. And, and he was sitting there all proud and how, how he can, you know, pull the bow and he's got a family and he works on his Corvette in his garage. And so, so, so Charles, that's a beautiful note to end on. Thank you for digging into that bit of, uh, social, cultural, um, what shall we call that? A sense of who we are and a sense of what society can and should be. And you heard it here on StarTalk. All right, guys, we're gonna call it quits there. Gary, Chuck, Charles, always great to have this trinity of the three of you working with me on this show.

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk Sports Edition Cosmic Queries Grab Bag. And I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, bidding you as always to keep looking up.